Who’s afraid of Englishness?

Tory leadership candidate Robert Jenrick has reignited the debate on Englishness. Last week, he accused the ‘metropolitan establishment’ – and by association, successive governments – of weakening English identity through its policies and attitudes. Jenrick, a former immigration minister, identified mass immigration and woke culture as major threats.

Yet for all Jenrick’s talk of English identity, and the threats to it, there was precious little sense of what exactly he meant by Englishness. So how might we go about developing a clearer sense of English identity?

England’s history is important here, in particular its Anglo-Saxon roots. Following the withdrawal of the Roman Empire in the fifth century AD, the Germanic tribes of Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians settled in southern Britain. Alongside the somewhat ‘Romanised’ Celtic Britons, who had inhabited England since the Iron Age, these ethnic groups became to be collectively known as the Anglo-Saxons. The unification of their kingdoms under Athelstan created the sovereign state of England in 927 AD.

The Anglo-Saxons played a key role in the development of England’s cultural, linguistic, institutional and economic development. Yet some woke academics, as Jenrick might call them, have sought to wash the Anglo-Saxon influence away, on the grounds that mentioning them promotes ‘whiteness’ and a false idea of what it means to be a ‘native’. This is foolish and denies the historical and cultural origins of England itself.

This is not to say that Englishness should be understood in so-called ethnic terms. Rather, it is to argue that any English civic national identity should recognise the immense historical, cultural contribution the Anglo-Saxons made to the formation of what we know now as England.

Other groups have also made hugely significant contributions to what it means to be English. There was the Norman Conquest in the 11th century, when an army of Normans, French, Flemish and Bretons invaded England. Then there was the arrival of the Huguenots – protestants from France as well as Wallonia. They fled to England between the 16th and 18th centuries to escape religious persecution during the European wars of religion. The Huguenots were generally highly skilled and many played a significant role in the development of England’s army. They also showed that England could be a sanctuary for the persecuted.

Yet in discussions of Englishness today, too many self-styled progressives seek to downplay the role of the Anglo-Saxons, Normans and Huguenots in the formation of England on the basis that they were, well, white. Apparently, this poses a problem for ‘inclusivity’ in today’s multicultural society. This is an absurd argument. These groups are central to the development of English history, culture and identity. There is no reason why learning about them should alienate non-white minorities currently living in England.

Indeed, if England is to develop a truly successful civic national identity, we need to start celebrating its deep cultural roots. This means understanding how it came into existence and acknowledging the contributions made by assorted groups, regardless of the colour of their skin.

There is an opportunity today, in the face of Jenrick’s ‘metropolitan establishment’, to cultivate a positive, uplifting, optimistic Englishness, based on shared values, common purpose and an incredibly rich history. This is also a chance to neutralise the lingering threats of radical identitarianism – which frame English identity in exclusionary terms rooted in racial background and ethnic ancestry – and develop a civic English patriotism. One that understands the human desire for community and that could actually strengthen social cohesion in multiracial England.

In an era of notable demographic and cultural change, it is vital that all people feel that they belong to England’s national story. To achieve this, we need to start celebrating rather than erasing the history of this fascinating country of ours.

Rakib Ehsan is the author of Beyond Grievance: What the Left Gets Wrong about Ethnic Minorities, which is available to order on Amazon.